US could see exodus of tech talent, warns Meta’s chief AI scientist

This is because “the US seems set on destroying its public research funding system,” LeCun wrote in a post on LinkedIn, stating that “Many US-based scientists are looking for a Plan B.”

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This comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration has issued multiple executive orders to reduce funding for such ventures such as for the National Institutes of Health, which sends billions in federal funding for biomedical research.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is also looking to cut spending on the NIH, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and NASA.

LeCun then wrote a criteria list that scientists look to which allows them to be the most creative and productive. They are as follows:

1) Access to top students and junior collaborators.

2) Access to research funding with little administrative overhead.

3) Good compensation (comparable with top universities in the US, Switzerland, Canada).

4) Freedom to do research on what they think is most promising.

5) Access to research facilities (e.g. computing infrastructure, etc).

6) Ability to collaborate/consult with industry and startups.

7) Moderate teaching and administrative duties.

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“To attract the best scientific and technological talents, make science and technology research professions attractive,” he concluded, highlighting that “European academia rates high on 1 and 4, low on 2 (even if you can get an ERC grant), 5, 6 and 7, and *very* low on 3,” while “European industry rates low on almost every criterion, particularly on 4, but also on 3 and 5 compared to top US industry labs.”

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